


until my body ached

by worry



Series: fragments [6]
Category: Ava's Demon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Gen, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, gil doesnt have a good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 00:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10347975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worry/pseuds/worry
Summary: Gil gets into Paradise. It isn't what he expected.





	

i.

 

He is waiting for you at the doors of Paradise, leaning on the white gates, one arm around a rod made of marble and every prayer that you have ever sent. He's waiting for you in all-white, he's blending right into those gates, he  _is_ the gates and you're about to open him like opening a marble-skin-bone gift that you've waited so long to receive, you're about to touch the gates, you're about to walk into your new life where you will be  _living in bliss,_ amen.

 

But that gift was never meant for you. That gift only became yours on a second chance, a cliff-edge. The gift does not remember you, doesn't _want_ you like you want it, and here, in Paradise, things are not going to be different, things are going to morph back to the day of Ava Ire's massacre and the gift will look at you and say:  _sorry, guess I forgot._

 

Marble, skin, bone, Gev waiting for you at the entrance to Paradise, it's all too similar, too much like watching your entire life burn down at the hands of one sick child. But. Now. You're _here_ , and the world around you disintegrates in your memory, the world like ashes, the world like the smoky scent of a boy you once knew, the world below you like gray skin below you. This is what matters now. This is all that you have now. This is what you have always wanted: a place to rest.

 

Gev looks at you like you are the world beneath Paradise and—and says your name, says  _Gil,_ like taking Titan's name in vain. Gil. Gil. Gil Marverde, a gift.

 

And then he opens the gate for you, mouth silent as if he hadn't just ripped you apart with one word, one  _beautiful word,_ and leads you into a dream.

 

ii.

 

"This is it," says Gev, gently punching your arm with his elbow. "This is  _Paradise._ Amazing, huh?"

 

"Yes," you reply, and touch your skin where his body ghosted; you are wearing white too, now, despite the fact that you entered soaked in teal. Gev on you, white on you. Again: it is too similar. "Amazing."

 

"Did you ever think about it," he says with sudden urgency, "when we were kids?"

 

 You stop, cold filling you and your entirety.  _Did you ever think about me, Gev? You ask me about Paradise, but when I imagined Paradise at age eleven_ (you were  _e l e v e n_ )  _all I saw in my mind was you._

 

"I think everyone does, at some point."

 

"That sounded like a cop-out, but okay," he says, in that intriguing Gev colloquialism that you've always loved, ten-eleven-nineteen-however-old-you-are-now. "Come on, I'll show you where your place is. It's right next to mine, actually. Sucks how there aren't, like, Paradise tour guides, because then I wouldn't have to do all of this work for you."

 

Oh, he's doing this for  _you._ You feel sick, and small, like something newly born, something emerging from the ground in blossom. You look at the ground, glowing white, and—

 

there's Gev's face, half-burned off, beneath it like being stuffed against a window.

 

Is this — are you seeing things — are you cra—

 

_you are in Paradise, there is no sickness in Paradise—_

 

"Gil, are you coming?"

 

The not-Gev underneath the floor fades away. You cough; nod; stuff your hands in your pockets; and follow Gev into Paradise. You are in Paradise.

 

 

iii.

 

It's unlike anything else in Paradise, blue where the white should be, sand where the grass should be. The tiny house is  _perfect,_ reflects your past perfectly like a reflection in a moonlit ocean. It is  _perfect._ Titan made it perfect for you, because he knows you, looks down on you, picked  _you._ It is supposed to look like this, you are supposed to feel at peace. You are at peace. You are living here in bliss. You are perfect, now. _Chosen_.

 

"There are no locks here," explains Gev, "so just open the door. Go on."

 

(When you step on the sand, the sand wails like a wounded animal. You are at peace.)

 

You put your hand on the doorknob; in contrast to the blinding whiteness, the doorknob is golden. Truly golden. 

 

" _ **Go on** ,_" Gev says, voice deepening to an inhuman level for one moment, just one moment, until he smiles back at you, teeth poking out from his lips, entirely humanlike.

 

So you put your hand on the doorknob, cold to the touch; the gold shimmer of it trails onto your hand. You watch the movement of the color, the way it shines in the sun, gold like a statue, gold like a halo, gold like Titan's sword, amen. It is a downfall: you always give in, it's _Gev_ and you are in Paradise, you are in Paradise, you are in Paradise,  _you are in P a r a d i s e ._

 

And the inside of the house—the inside of your house,  _your_ house,  **y o u r** house—looks exactly like your old one, the one that held your entire life for eight years, the one that was a vessel for you and your soul and the aspiration that filled you up to an overflow; _this is who you are, this is who you were destined to be, you worked in that house until your body gave out, medical terms in your mind like an intrusive, intrusive thought._  It seems bigger, like it expands to every end of the universe. The taste of this situation should be euphoric,  _you are at peace,_ but there's rot growing around your teeth, rot in the back of your throat choking you like a medical term. You ignore it, another downfall. Another downfall. You always give in.

 

"What do you think?" he asks, putting his arm around you,  _oh, you're at peace._

 

"I like it," you reply, ignoring the rot & the garden in your throat, _this is the garden and its forbidden fruit, mouths only rot here if you are tempted,_  "it's -  _comforting._ "

 

"I'm glad," Gev says, and then like a reversed prayer, unholy words, "I guess I should get—"

 

There's a bang at the window, a melody of bangs and pounds and desperation in your ears, filling you up to overflow again; it's too much, almost too much to handle, you're rotting.

 

"— going." He coughs. "Ignore that, it happens sometimes."

 

But, like straying from your holy, righteous path, you look through the window, because you always give in, you would do anything out of curiosity, you are supposed to be at peace, and outside of your door there is a street, red-painted. It wasn't made this way,  _oh._ It's - that isn't right, can't be right, you are in Paradise - it's -  _blood._

 

The burned Gev (whose face is getting more and more unrecognizable and sick, like the fire hasn't died, will never die) is banging with his hands on your window.  **Y o u r** window. There is no sickness in Paradise. There is no sickness in Paradise so you must be seeing things, so you have been cured, so you have been made holy, so you see everything that could have been, around you like faint ghosts.

 

His banging continues and continues, breaths of  _help me, you can save me, help me_ on his lips. And the window cracks. The burned Gev's hands disappear, leaving only bonestubs and brown, charred flesh, once-beautiful body destroyed. He  _wails._ He wails, and your chest falls, your pulse falls,  _you_ fall.

 

" **I T O L D Y O U T O I G N O R E I T,"** says your Gev, and when you turn to him he is white like Paradise, white like one of your ghosts, white like the opposite of purity, and his face is covered in an almost-shattered Titan mouthpiece, small green stems growing out of the sides. The inside of him, where his _life_ should be, where the Gev colloquialisms should live, is hollow, empty, sick. You can see right into his torso, and it's organless, blue in the places that are not covered with mold. Gev, torn apart, disgusting. He grabs your arm, and—

 

"He" grabs your arm and you push "him" onto the ground, the room around you a mess of black dirt and weeds and  _old, rotting_ wood. You run. You run. It feels like you have been running since your death, running around and chasing ascension out of both fear and hope, fear-and-hope like the gates, like Gev. It doesn't matter now, because you are in Paradise and you've made it. Right?

 

There are piles of bodies outside of your house, piles and piles of bodies covering up the red streets; everywhere you look there is death, in the distance you see death.

 

Above you is a sign, the only thing that remains perfect. It reads:

 

_WELCOME TO PARADISE._

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, pls tell me what u think! <3


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